Freya sighed as she sat next to Toast and pulled out a nutrient drink. Toast was in the process of explaining the battle to Mon as she slotted her drink into her suit, so she listened in as she took a deep pull on her drink.

“The tanks only had a line on Torres’ truck because we came to a stop before the switchback.” Toast said, putting one hand in front of the other to show that the vehicles had been stacked behind each other. "If Knowles hadn’t spotted the hidden tanks then we would have been in the perfect position for them to fire on all of us once we turned on the road. It would have left us side-on towards their position, giving them a clear shot at all of us. As it was, the second tank had to reposition to get a shot at the truck which was actively firing.” Toast told him.

“Why didn’t we stay in the trucks, if that was true. Why leave?” Mon asked, looking confused.

“Did you know what kind of munition the tanks were carrying? I didn’t. Neither did, I suspect, Sergeant Torres.” Toast said, shrugging his shoulders. “What’s to say they didn’t have something that could have gone right through all the trucks? Something like a HPR round. They would have gone right through both Torres’ truck as well as the APC. If the second tank had something similar then, if it had fired a few seconds later, it would have gone through the wreckage, and there wouldn't be anyone left. It was the right call, at the time.” Toast told him.

“It was a close one, for sure.” Dusty said, as he came up to them and sat down on the other side of Mon.

“What happens now? They were on to us. We can’t have had a hundred percent success rate at all of the nodes. The anti-ship weapons, at least some of them, will be ready for the Raja.” Mon said, looking down.

“Don’t need all of them.” Freya spoke up. “You just need enough to create a hole in the jamming. If the Raja has the same systems and weapons as the Monarch did, then it should be able to see through the jamming and take out the nodes that are still up.”

“How many nodes do we need?” Dusty asked, taking out his nutrition drink.

“Depends on where they are. You need a big enough area clumped together to break the jamming. Maybe ten nodes if they are close enough to each other, maybe more. Depends on where they are in relation to each other.” Freya told them, as she removed her empty drink from her armor and pulled off her backpack so that she could put her trash away.

They all looked up as Torres came walking up to them. “No aliens?” He asked, looking at Toast.

“We tore the place apart. If they are here then they are too well hidden. We would need to call in a specialist to find out. I doubt they’re here though.” Toast replied. Sergeant Torres nodded and walked away without saying anything.

Freya looked at her mission clock. It told her that they had three hours and some change until the Raja arrived. She was worried about the surprise party waiting on them. It made her wonder just how many platoons would survive a trap like that. Toast was kidding about Knowles being the only reason why they were still alive. She knew that she would have a drone up to scout the area, but she hadn’t known about the drones that could see through active camo like the one Knowles had. She could have hacked her drones if she had some kind of clue, but she was worried that she wouldn’t have had any indication that she needed to.

She turned on her music and closed her eyes. She had been given a few hours to relax. Second and Third squads were at the door guarding it. Freya and the rest of her squad, along with some of First and Second squads, had spent the last two hours searching the small building inside the hill looking for the two missing aliens. Like Toast had said, they tore the place apart and found nothing.

She was nodding to a really good song when One came charging in about a half hour after Torres had walked by. “Toast, grab your squad, you have a mission.” She told them, before abruptly turning around and walking back the way she came.

Toast slapped her leg to get her attention. “We’re up.” He told her, climbing to his feet.

“I heard.” Freya said, turning off her music with her Personal AI as she stood up. She turned around and grabbed her rifle before she set off with her squad leader.

They found Sergeant Torres sitting among Sixth Squad and all of their equipment. He was looking down at a screen with his arms folded over his chest. Sitting in front of him was Sergeant Leni, who was scanning a screen incredibly fast. Knowles was sitting next to her with a remote drone console in her lap, but she wasn’t looking at her screen. Instead she was looking at the same screen that Sergeant Leni was looking at.

“Toast, Magic.” He said in greeting, ignoring the others in the squad. “Magic, First Platoon’s spec ops platoon wants you. Toast, I’m setting a waypoint on your map. I need you and your squad to get her there. All of you need to be in civilian clothes, and helmets off. You cannot be noticed. I’m setting another waypoint. It’s a parking lot just behind the bunker here on this base. Hotwire a car that won’t bring you any attention, and get to where you are meeting up with the spec ops squad. Once you drop her off, come back here. Don’t get caught.”

“I’m scouting your route.” Sergeant Leni said, not taking her eyes off the screen. “I’ll post waypoints on what roads to take to avoid most of the roadblocks. There is a police vehicle in the parking lot. I suggest you take that, and bluff your way through the rest of them.”

“I have no idea what their mission is, but the order is to get you there before Tom comes home. That means you need to be there as fast as possible.” Sergeant Torres said, looking at Freya.

“Yes, Sergeant.” she replied, feeling a zing of fear run though her.

“Get it done, Toast.” Torres said, turning his gaze to Freya’s squad leader.

“On it, boss.” Toast replied, turning towards Freya and the rest of the squad. “Patterson, lose the cannon.”

“But what if we need it?” Patterson said, sounding sad.

“It’s a liability. Lose it.” Toast told him, as he pushed Freya gently to get her moving. Tike, Freya noticed, was already walking towards the exit. Patterson gently put his gigantic gun down, leaning it on the side of the wall as they walked out. He swung a normal-looking gun from behind his back.

“What about my rifle?” Freya asked him as they left the room.

“If the spec ops squad wants you, it’s because you're one hell of a shot. Keep it, but keep it hidden.” He told her.

“Will do.” Freya told him. As they walked through the corridors towards the command node’s exit she couldn’t help feeling a bit of excitement as well as fear. It felt good that someone thought she was good enough to be called to another squad, but she was afraid that she would screw whatever they had in mind up. The last thing she wanted was mess up. She already had problems with people thinking she was a hacker. If she failed it would give those rumors legs to run.

They left through the same door that Knowles had hacked to get them inside, which was being guarded by Third and Fourth squads. They had set up auto-turrets and metal shield walls all along the large room that was on the other side of the doors to the outside, as well as the two hallways that lead deeper into the command node’s bunker.

Toast led them outside and around the bunker to where a normal-looking parking lot was. It had a few cars parked in it but, other than that, it was empty. There was a police car parked in the parking spot nearest to the sidewalk that led to the command node. It took Freya a few seconds for her sabotage tool to unlock the car. While electric, the lock was oddly dumb enough that she couldn’t hack it. She had to manually turn the lock for it to open. It reminded her of some of the snowmobiles back home that were older than dirt. You had to have a key, of all things, to get the things started.

“Tike, you’re driving. Patterson, behind me. Magic, other side.” Toast said, motioning for Freya to get in the back on the other side of the door. She frowned until she looked through the window of the car, and noticed that the steering wheel was on the other side of the car. She felt her cheeks warm up as she realized that she had just unlocked the front passenger door.

“I really need to work on my awareness.” She muttered quietly. Patterson must have heard her because he chuckled. Tike, to Freya’s relief, remained silent. The last thing she thought she needed was for Tike to hear her say something like that.

“Helmets on the floor by your feet. Magic, put your rifle in the back. If we get stopped, we are a SWAT team heading towards a situation. Let me do all the talking.” Toast said, as he then rattled off the camo number he wanted them all to use. She did notice that he gave himself the rank of police lieutenant. Tike gave herself a Sergeant’s tabs, while she and Patterson had private tabs on their shoulders. She toyed with the idea of putting sergeant tabs on her shoulder, but changed her mind as she didn’t want the attention if they got stopped. Better to be a peon, than someone who needed to be recognized in that case.

She was glad she didn’t change her tabs when Toast noticed what Tike had done. He ordered her to change her tabs back, asking her in what world did a Sergeant drive while she had two privates in the back. Freya had to force her face not to smile as Tike changed her tabs back. Patterson, on the other hand, didn’t bother keeping a smile off his face. If Tike noticed she didn’t let it show. After a few minutes on the road Toast told Patterson to change his tabs to Sergeant, saying that no Lieutenant would drive with just three privates without at least a sergeant in the vehicle. Tike looked pissed, but Patterson looked happy as he changed his tabs.

The drive was a long one as they kept to the back roads following the waypoints Sergeant Leni had set up. That didn’t mean that they missed all of the roadblocks. They hit two of them. The first one they pulled up on, the police that were manning the roadblock just waved them through. The second one was manned by the military. Freya tensed as they were forced to stop.

“Papers.” The soldier asked when they stopped. He looked everyone in the eye as he did so. Toast handed Tike what looked like an old fashioned leather wallet. Tike in turn handed it over to the soldier who used a hand scanner to scan whatever was in the wallet.

“Where are you going?” The soldier asked, still holding on to the wallet as he looked at his scanner. Toast rattled off the name of some town and the soldier nodded, handing Tike back the wallet.

“Be careful, we have reports of terrorists in the area. I’m sure you heard.” He told them as he looked at them again.

“Thanks.” Toast said, taking back the wallet. “Hey, you guys have anything more concrete than what they are telling us?”

“You didn’t hear it from me, but I heard a rumor that the Feds might be coming back for another attack.” The soldier replied.

Toast didn’t say anything, but he turned away and banged his fist on the dashboard. He was quiet for a few seconds before he turned back to the soldier. He nodded to him and said, “Thanks. I’ll have my people ready.”

Freya was impressed with Toast’s acting ability and wondered if it was a skill she could learn. She watched as the soldier backed away from their car and waved for the other soldiers to pull back the roadblock. Soon they were on their way again. Tike lost it first, after they were a hundred or so feet away. She started chuckling as she sped up. Patterson joined in and Freya found herself laughing along with the others. Toast just sat back with a satisfied smile on his face.

“Man, you totally should be an actor after you get out.” Patterson said, shaking his head as the laughter died down.

“By Tom’s toe, I can totally see that. I bet you would be great in one of those rom-con feeds.” Tike said as she started laughing again.

“You like rom-coms?” Toast asked, turning to look at Tike. Freya couldn’t help but start laughing again, much harder than she had before. Patterson joined in with his goofy laughter. Tike didn’t reply. Freya wished she could see Tike’s expression. She knew Tike had to be embarrassed about outing herself.

The waypoint pointed them to a small hole-in-the-wall restaurant in a mostly empty strip mall. Toast had Tike drive to the back of the strip mall before he let them all out. Toast went to the back door, and banged on it.. Freya stopped by the back of their car and looked around. She had noticed that the parking lot was empty on the way in, as was the street that led up to the strip mall. The back of the stip mall was empty except for a few dumpsters that were full of trash. Behind the strip mall was a large grass field. The grass was brown and dead with large patches of dry-looking dirt in various different spots around the field. She turned back to see Toast holding the door open as Tike walked in. Freya decided to leave her rifle in the trunk of the car as she quickly walked towards the door.

She found herself inside a stockroom filled with shelves that went all the way up to the ceiling. The shelves were filled with pill bottles and boxes that were neatly stacked alongside each other. The pill bottles were in neat, very organized, rows that looked like military formations to Freya. She looked away from the shelves and at the four Federation Marines that were sitting on large boxes watching them come in. She smiled as she spotted Jesus sitting in his trademark heavy armor with a white skull in the middle of his chest. She smiled and nodded at him. He gave her a smirk and rolled his eyes.

He looked old with grey hair and tan dark spots on his face. She knew he had been respawned a few times, so she knew he hadn’t been out for the full thirty-something years. She knew that with the BacT they had the life expectancy for their clones was about five years. She had no idea how long he had been out this time, but going by his looks Freya guessed it had to be right around the full five-year mark. That made her look at the others and she noted signs of prolonged usage of the fake BacT on all their faces.

“How was the trip? Any problems that I need to be aware of?” Asked a Sergeant who was sitting by a wooden desk that looked like someone had made it in their garage. All function and nothing else.

“Not that I’m aware of.” Toast replied, stepping close to the Sergeant. “We ran into two roadblocks, but nothing to report. We weren’t searched, and I didn’t see any tails. That’s not to say if they followed us on a satellite or a drone. We wouldn’t know.”

“Unless they changed it, there shouldn’t be any satellites over us.” Freya said, speaking up. “They were mostly over major cities and the founding families’ compounds when I last looked, about a year or two ago. The families like to spy on each other.”

The Sergeant nodded. “Magic, I assume?” He asked her.

“Yes, sir.” Freya said, nodded to the man.

“Thanks for bringing her. You should head back.” The sergeant of the spec ops squad said, suddenly standing up.

“You need anything before we go?” Toast asked him.

“Some medi-pens. We’re running low. These damn clones are getting old.” The Sergeant told him.

“Keep one, hand the rest over.” Toast said turning back to look at Tike and Patterson. Freya also slung her backpack off and grabbed her extra medi pens to add them to the pile. She kept the one in her belt.

“Her rifle is in the car, along with her helmet.” Toast said, as Freya added her collection to the pile.

“Send someone to get it.” The Sergeant told him. “When you leave, keep going down this road until you reach the next town. Change cars to look like civilians. Steal a car there and keep going north. At the next town, there should be a police cruiser parked at the waypoint I’m sending you. Use the car's GPS and follow the directions it’s set to. Give yourself about twenty miles before you reach the destination and ditch the car. Make your way back on foot to where your platoon is. I requested a squad with active camo, so I hope by Tom that you have it or things will get cocked up.”

“We’re a scout squad.” Toast said in reply.

“Well, at least one thing is going to plan.” The Sergeant said tiredly. The rest of his squad chuckled.

“Anything else, sir?” Toast asked, as Tike came back into the storeroom with Freya’s helmet and rifle.

“Nah, be on your way. Good luck, Sergeant.” The spec ops squad leader said, with a small wave.

“You too, sir.” Toast replied. “Magic, stay safe.” He told her as he slapped her shoulder, rocking her back a bit.

“You have to ride with Patterson and Tike. I think I’m safer here than you guys.” Freya said with a smile. She had waited until both of them were already out the door before she said what she said to Toast. She knew that Patterson would take it as it was intended - a joke. But she was worried that Tike might take it the wrong way. Toast rolled his eyes and shook his head as he walked out the door.

“First let me tell you, you are not my first choice. Gunny forced you on me. If it wasn’t for Jesus talking about you like you were a god with a rifle, I would have gone over her head and requested to speak with Lt. Shen. As it is, this is not the first plan. Nor is it the second one. This is plan D. I lost most of my platoon in the last attempt and I don’t have a trigger puller. You were the closest trigger puller, so you got called in.” The new Sergeant told her, slightly angry.

“Wait, I thought this was a squad.” Freya said looking around at the seven marines around her.

“No, it’s just everyone who is left.” The Sergeant told her, tiredly.

“Jesus is my acting second-in-command.” He told her as he introduced the remaining members of his platoon. “Our main objective is to capture the two aliens that are on-planet. First attempt was two years ago. It was a failed abduction. The last attempt was, once the rest of you started taking the nodes, to take them while they were en route to their escape ship. It was an ambush.”

The Sergeant paused to grab a medi pen from the pile that Toast had left him and insert it into his armor. The others got up and did the same. Freya noticed that the only one who didn’t use a medi pen was Jesus. She absently wondered if he was being masculine or just didn’t need it. She bet it was the first. He gave her a smile when she looked at him. Then she realized what the Sergeant had said. He said they knew where the aliens were. That meant that she and the others who had searched up and down at the node for them wasted their time. Command already knew they weren’t there. She stood there and stewed over that information until the Sergeant started talking again.

“Intel says the aliens are holed up in a bunker near the spaceport. We have confirmed reports that, if the first family’s patriarch dies, then their contract is null and void. Their first response should be to leave the planet before the Raja gets here. We have a platoon in place to intercept them if they make a run for it. It’s our job to make them run.” The Sergeant said, looking more relaxed now that he had a dose of the medi pen.

“In forty-five minutes, the first patriarch will get a message that his mistress is pregnant. According to what we witnessed in the past he will not take the message inside the bunker where he is staying. Apparently he doesn’t want his family to know about her.” The Sergeant, who’s name she still had no idea of, told her.

He showed her a picture of what the man looked like. He was standing next to five ment looking right into the camera. While he was not the tallest of the five he was a close second. He had a very neatly trimmed beard that hugged his chin. He looked young for being a patriarch. She had seen his picture before and even knew a little about him from her little program. She knew he had been older at one point, but with the cloning tech he made himself younger. She also knew from some of the illicit emails that she had read that he also created his body to be perfect.

“He should be arrogant enough to step outside like he always does when he gets a message from her. He still thinks the databanks on the planet are under his control. They’re not. We own them now. Once you kill him, his data will be deleted, and he will be gone for good.” The Sergeant said, looking at his feet. From what she knew of him she agreed with him.

“You’ll have about a minute to take the shot and kill him.” He told her before he looked up at her, and gave her a nasty smile. “We can’t get you close. The best we can do is four miles and you’ll be shooting uphill.”

Freya backed up bumping into the shelves making the pill bottles rattle, but not fall over. She quickly moved away from the shelving. “That’s over the horizon.” She told him.

“Yes, but he is on a mountain. You should still be able to eyeball him.” Jesus told her.

“That’s not the best part.” One of the other corporals told her. “We can’t get any drones near there and we have no satellite to aid you. On top of that, you can’t use auto-aiming. They got some weird alien tech that messes with our stuff. I can give you distance and wind speed, but you’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way.”

“That won’t be a problem will it?” The Sergeant asked her, mockingly.

“I never owned anything with auto-aiming. It won’t be a problem. The distance might.” Freya said, thinking about the shot she had to take.

“Magic, we need the aliens gone. Either dead or in our custody. Command is worried that they might be able to get their tech to work despite taking out the nodes. It might be enough to take out the Raja. We already lost the Monarch. We can’t lose the Raja too.” Jesus said, leaning forward and talking in an intense tone of voice.

“Jesus is right. I need to know right here and right now. Can you make the shot?” The Sergeant asked her. “I don’t care if you’re an Earther. If you’re worried about the rumors - don’t. If you were hacking, then I won’t say anything if you back out now. I’ll keep your secret. I need a good trigger puller on this one. I need the real deal.”

“I. Don’t. Hack!” Freya said frustrated. “I can take the shot and kill your guy.” Freya said, angrily.

“Alright.” The Sergeant said tiredly, with a nod. “For good or ill, let's do this.”

It only took about thirty minutes to get to the spot the spec ops platoon had picked out for the shot. They led her to an old, run-down playground on a hill that overlooked a school. Freya could see kids sitting in their seats like this was a normal day. It felt surreal as she jumped down in a hole that Jesus had dug in the soft dirt. Jesus jumped down beside her while the Sergeant, who still had not introduced himself to her, jumped down on the other side of her. The rest of the squad quickly finished setting up the portable active camo machine, except for Freya’s shot caller.

The corporal who was her shot caller was laying down on his stomach behind her. He had an oversized scope in his hands that was not attached to a rifle. She watched as he got settled and looked into it before she turned around. She set up her rifle on the small berm in front of her, and waited. She didn’t have to wait long. The shot caller gave her the coordinates and she moved her rifle so that she could see the location.

She had to max out her scope just to see something. Even then, everything was really tiny. It was far enough away that she had to use the top hash mark on her target reticule. She couldn’t use the middle of the scope because of the distance involved. While her rifle had almost no bullet drop, it still had some. On top of that, she was way outside the design specs for her rifle and scope.

“This is going to be one hell of a shot.” Freya thought to herself, as she adjusted her scope a bit to make what she was seeing less blurry. She was still fiddling with her scope when her shot caller gave her the distance and wind speed.

She cursed as she adjusted the target reticule once more. This time she had to move her rifle to the left well away from the cross shape in her scope. She bit her lip when she found herself aiming at the bottom left of her scope. Literally at the very edge of her scope. She looked through it and found herself staring at a balcony that was sticking out of a building set into the side of a mountain. It had a tan wall on either side of a small French door in the middle of it. There was a glass wall at the edge of the balcony, preventing anyone from falling to their death. It was only waist-high, so Freya didn’t think it would make a difference to the shot. The balcony though was empty. There was no one there yet.

She kept the balcony in sight and waited. Time seemed to crawl as she watched the empty balcony. She started to feel a cramp in her left arm from holding on to her rifle a bit too hard. She relaxed her hand and the cramp faded a bit, but didn’t go away completely. She could feel a rock sticking into her armor near her thigh, but it didn’t hurt. Her armor kept it from hurting, but it was distracting.

She took a deep breath and tried to still her mind. It was an old trick her grandfather had taught her a very long time ago. You sometimes had to wait hours for a moose to come across your kill zone. You couldn’t make a sound or you would spook the animal. Granted, she didn’t need to sit by the scope all the time like she was doing now, but it still helped her.

The shot caller gave her a ten-minute warning and she mentally cursed as she realized that she had only been on her scope for only five minutes. She forced herself to relax and sang a song in her head, trying to distract herself from how long it was taking. It worked somewhat and she was startled when the shot caller gave her a five-minute warning. She switched to a new song in her head and waited.

“Message sent.” The shot caller called out suddenly over the radio. “Wind speed has picked up by two miles an hour.”

Freya adjusted her rifle once more and waited, watching the empty balcony. She bit her lip and took a deep breath and slowly let it out, trying to slow her beating heart. Her grandfather had always told her, way back then, to relax her body before she took a hard shot. He showed her how to relax her body with a meditation technique. It was a combination of a series of deep breaths and clenching then relaxing her body, starting at her feet and working all the way up to her scalp.

Time seemed to stop and she felt the slow thump of her heart in her chest as she watched the empty balcony, waiting for her beast to show up. No one said anything and, for Freya, the world disappeared except for that balcony. Somewhere behind her she heard the shot caller tell her that five minutes had passed. Then the quiet descended once more. Freya gently caressed the flat part above the trigger on her rifle feeling the smoothness through her gloves. She felt oddly relaxed.

“Ten minutes past.” Freya heard the shot caller say behind her. She blinked as she felt her eyes getting dry. She mentally reminded herself to blink more often.

“Fifteen minutes.” The shot caller told them. A minute later a bell rang startling her. She was able to keep her focus on the balcony as the ringing stopped.

“That’s the school lunch bell.” Jesus told her. She ignored him. It wasn’t important.

“Twenty minutes.” The shot caller told them.

“Where is he?” Someone asked over the radio.

“Shut up.” The sergeant ordered calmly.

“Twenty-five.” The shot caller told them.

“How long until the Raja gets here?” Someone asked over the radio.

Almost at the same time someone else asked. “Is it a bust?”

“We stay until we are called away or he’s dead.” The sergeant told them, ending the conversation.

A while later someone asked “When is recess for the kids?” Freya felt a little zing of fear, but forced herself to ignore the school below her.

To her relief, Jesus answered the question. “They don’t let the kids out to play anymore, not since the Monarch fell on the planet.”

Freya took a deep breath then restarted her meditation technique to calm herself down once more. It didn’t take that long and she was in the zone once more. She had no idea if the shot caller stopped calling out the time or time was screwing with her as she waited. She heard the lunch bell once more, then nothing.

She was in the middle of mentally singing the words to Don’t Take My Stars Away, an old famous song, when she felt a weird tingling between her eyebrows just above her nose. It was an old feeling she got a long time ago when she was hunting. First with her grandfather and later by herself. Her grandfather told her it was the Earth telling her that her prey was coming. He made it sound like some Hoodoo spiritual thing. She didn’t care about that, but she knew the feeling. She let her finger drop to her trigger and took a deep breath. Then she waited for her beast.

“Target acquired.” She spoke softly into the radio as the door opened to the balcony and her beast stepped out. He looked tiny in her scope. Far tinier than anything she had ever hunted back home.

“Confirmed. Target acquired.” Her shot caller confirmed. She watched her beast look down at his phone as he closed the door. Her shot caller softly gave her the range and wind speed and Freya adjusted her rifle once more.

“Permission to fire?” Freya asked.

“Granted.” The Sergeant replied. Freya did nothing but wait for her shot caller to give the command.

“Fire. Fire. Fire.” Her shot caller called out.

Freya took a deep breath and let it out slowly and, at the moment between breaths, she gently pulled back on the trigger. She watched her beast as he stood there unknowingly typing on his phone. She felt the faint vibration as her rifle fired. For several long seconds she thought she missed. Then she saw a flash of red in between her target's phone and his head. Her beast dropped his phone and stumbled backwards into the wall behind him. The wall didn’t hold him up like she thought it might. He simply dropped, leaving a dark wet spot on the wall.

“Target down.” The shot caller said as soon as Freya’s beast dropped to the ground. She could see it through the glass wall that ran around the outer edge of the balcony. He was too tiny to see his eyes, but she knew in her heart that her beast was dead. He had the stillness that only the dead have.

“Confirmed, target is zeroed.” The shot caller said into the silence.